


Loverman

by gremlinny



Category: The Grinning Man - Philips & Teitler/Grose & Morris & Philips & Teitler/Grose
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Disabled Character, Chronic Pain, F/M, Fluff, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Sharing a Bed, canon blind character, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27490624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremlinny/pseuds/gremlinny
Summary: “Grinpayne, you know I don’t mind. I’ll help you, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s no problem.”He shifts his head to the side to look at her, ignoring the way his neck pops with the movement. He’s been hurting all day and trying not to let it show, but there’s no hiding himself from Dea.“Alright,” he sighs, “okay.“
Relationships: Dea/Grinpayne | Gwynplaine Trelaw
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	Loverman

**Author's Note:**

> Part of The Modern AU, published at last! At some point I’ll get around to writing more modern stuff, probably.
> 
> This has a description of feeding tubes / g-buttons, so if that squicks you out then let this be a warning. And as a disclaimer, just in case: I did not list every step in how to administer liquid medication through a feeding tube, and this is not a complete or entirely accurate description of how to administer liquid medication through a feeding tube.

The first thing Grinpayne does when he walks into the hotel room is kick off his shoes and pull down his mask. Dea’s already rummaging through their suitcases for pajamas, and the clock on the wall says 11:17 PM.

“I’m five seconds away from just lying down on the floor,” Grinpayne announces, setting his backpack on the counter and trying to ignore the pain in his shoulders. Dea hums and passes him a bundle of clothes, and he steps out of his jeans as he walks over and turns on the lamp at the bedside table. 

“Get changed and you can lay down in bed,” Dea yawns, taking off her bra with her back turned to him, then quickly slipping into a t-shirt and a pair of soft pajama pants that pool down in a heap of fabric at her feet.

Grinpayne winces as he tries to take off his shirt, straining to lift his arms up enough to remove it, and Dea finds her way over to give him a hand. He sprawls out on the bed once it’s done, feeling winded. “No shirt. Can’t do it. This is a tits out kind of night.”

His back aches with a persistent throbbing between his shoulder blades, radiating out to his neck and arms. Dea presses her lips together in a thin line.

“You should probably take your medicine soon.“

“I will. It’s not bad, I just— I need a minute. Maybe five. Ten minutes. Twenty.”

“That’s bad.”

“It’s bad. Front pocket of the backpack in a ziplock bag, there’s some Tylenol.”

_“Loose?”_

“I said it’s in a ziplock bag, don’t look at me like that.”

“You’re sure Tylenol’s going to cut it? I can help you with your actual medicines, you know, it’s fine.” She’s already got the backpack from off the counter, digging through its contents.

Grinpayne huffs. The prescriptions are liquid and work faster than Tylenol, but they taste so bad he usually only takes them through the g-button, and they’d have to dig out all the syringes and the extension kit and go through the trouble of priming it and measuring and making sure it’s connected properly. If he’s hurting bad enough to actually take it, it typically means he needs help setting it all up, and he’d hate to make Dea go any longer without sleep just for his sake.

“Grinpayne, you _know_ I don’t mind. I’ll help you with it, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s no problem.”

He shifts his head to the side to look at her, ignoring the way his neck pops with the movement. He’s been hurting all day and trying not to let it show, but there’s no hiding himself from Dea. She’d paused her search to tilt her head in his direction, waiting for an answer. 

“Alright,” he sighs, “okay. If you can get it primed and set up, then I can do the rest, just bring the bag here.”

Dea nods and passes him the backpack, and he digs around to find the medicine and the kit, pulling out little plastic clamps and tubing and syringes. 

The prescription painkiller is a thick liquid that tastes unimaginably bitter. Just looking at it makes him shudder, then he winces again when the pain spikes in his shoulders from the movement. As Dea flushes out the extension tubing with water in the bathroom sink, Grinpayne opens the bottle and sticks the syringe in, pulling the plunger up to draw in the right amount. 

His hands shake too much to fit the tubing in once he uncaps the button on his stomach, so Dea helps connect it.

Having her help him with the g-button always makes Grinpayne feel strange. Having a feeding tube in the first place makes him feel like some kind of freak, since it’s only there because he can’t always use his mouth for eating or drinking or taking medicine. With Dea’s hands on his abdomen as she fits the extension kit together, he feels like it’s only a matter of time before she realizes just how weird it is, how gross Grinpayne himself is. He tries not to squirm, but Dea can feel the way his breathing changes anxiously.

“Grinpayne? I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No! No, Dea, you’re fine, it’s just… I’m just being weird, it’s nothing.”

She raises a brow but doesn’t say anything as she finishes, straightening up and passing him the tube.

He fumbles with the syringe for a moment before fitting the end of it into the port, carefully pushing the plunger until it’s all the way down. He doesn’t like watching it go in, but he looks down at himself anyway, feeling his skin crawl as the syringe’s contents are emptied, and he shivers as he draws water into it to flush out the tubing. 

It’s quick and painless, over within a matter of seconds. 

Dea tilts her head to the side.

“All done?”

“All done,” Grinpayne replies softly, carefully disconnecting everything and drying the equipment off before tucking it back into the case, and snapping the cap back onto the button. 

“You’re not weird, you know,” Dea says, after a moment. She reaches out to him, putting her hand gently over his stomach as she speaks. ”This doesn’t make you some kind of monster, and neither do these.” She moves up to his jaw, finding the twisted skin of the scars on his face, following them down from his ears to the corners of his mouth.

“Or this,” she continues, tracing her thumb along the cleft at his lip, feeling how it’s pulled upward toward his nose. 

Grinpayne intertwines their fingers and presses a gentle kiss to the back of Dea’s hand. “Thank you. I just… It’s hard, sometimes, to…”

_To see myself as a person_ , he wants to admit, _it’s so hard for me to try and see myself as a human being and not some terrible disgusting thing, and if you could see me then you’d understand and you wouldn’t love me anymore._

“…It’s hard to cut through all these thoughts.”

Dea nods and squeezes his hand again. “I’m always here for you, don’t forget that. No matter what.”

“What if—“

“ _No matter what,_ Grinpayne. Now let’s get under the blankets before we both freeze to death, did you lower the temperature in here?”

“The air conditioner’s running on sixty degrees,” he tells her, wriggling around to get beneath the sheets, and Dea makes a face. 

“Sixty Fahrenheit, that’s, what—“

“Fifteen Celsius. We’ve lived in America for thirteen years and you haven’t figured out the imperial system yet?”

“I hate America.”

“So do most Americans.”

“Dear G-d, we’re citizens, that makes us American too.”

“Again; _thirteen years, Dea.”_

She lays down next to him, lying on her side so she can face him. “Give me a break,” she says, fighting back a yawn, “it’s been a long week and I’m tired.”

Grinpayne laughs softly and reaches over to brush her hair out of her eyes. “I think we’re both tired. But we don’t have anything important to do tomorrow.”

“So we can sleep in?”

“We can sleep in,” he confirms, rolling over onto his back with a sigh. Dea moves closer, resting her head on his chest, and Grinpayne puts an arm around her to hold her just a bit tighter. She’s got her arms wrapped around his body like he’s the world’s biggest teddy bear—which he kind of is, at the moment.

“I love you, Grinpayne.”

“I love you too, Dea.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m castledock on tumblr


End file.
